The Sunny Journal Is Here!

By Laura | Updated May 26, 2020This post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will get a commission at no extra cost to you.

Oh my goodness, you guys, I’m SUPER EXCITED because The Sunny Journal is finally available on Amazon!

This journal has literally been simmering inside of my brain for months and I couldn’t be more proud of how it turned out.

It feels so good to finally hold it in my hands and it makes all the hard work and those frustrating moments when trying to figure out Adobe InDesign totally worth it.

I’ve been obsessed with journals, planners, and life hacking since I was a teenager. If something promises to boost my productivity and help me grow as a person, by all means, sign me up!

But then about a year ago I was struggling with all these limiting beliefs and the negative committee inside my head and other shitty things we inherit from childhood and our past as a whole.

I wished and wished for a magic wand that would make me un-learn and de-own some of this emotional baggage. But of course, there is no magic wand, sorry to disappoint.

After lots of soul searching I figured (and accepted) it all comes down to us. Nobody’s coming, there’s no Prince Charming and no Fairy Godmother – we never needed them anyway.

So I started to work on my relationship with myself (because let’s be honest, we are all a bit broken), do the forgiveness work and learn to love myself better. After a while, I began to identify certain speech patterns that helped me move through feelings of overwhelmed and procrastination as well as small habits that made me a little bit more content every day.

And that’s how the Sunny Journal was born.

Who is the Sunny Journal for?

The Sunny Journal is for all the dream-chasers, goal diggers and go-getters out there. It’s for you if you are an entrepreneur, side hustler, blogger or someone who believes you were meant for more. It’s for you if you wake up in the middle of the night, your heart pounding, and tell yourself ‘this cannot be all there is‘. And it’s for you if deep down you know your life could be so much better if only you’d get out of your own way.

Now here’s the deal. There’s great power within you to become. Yes, you might be a little bit broken. But that’s how the light gets out. Sorry, Leonard Cohen, but we’ve already established Prince Charming wasn’t for realz.

So in order to become the person you want to be, you need to start living, right now, as you desire to become. You need to start acting, thinking, talking, dressing, eating, and feeling, like her. You cannot be a millionaire with a beggar’s mentality. You cannot be a champion with a victim’s mentality. You cannot help others if you don’t put your oxygen mask first.

The Sunny Journal’s tagline is ‘Daily Hugs For the Soul‘. That’s because as I repeatedly gave myself permission, dug deeper to find the much-needed courage and took responsibility for my actions (and inactions), I actually started to cultivate more self-compassion and self-acceptance, old wounds began to heal, and ultimately I learned to love myself better.

A daily journaling practice can indeed feel like a hug for the soul. That’s how it feels to me anyway and I hope it’ll feel the same to you.

So let’s have a look at each of the features.

Undated

The Sunny Journal is meant to be used daily. Add today’s date at the top of the page for your records. However, since this is an undated journal, skipping a day or two won’t be the end of the world. You can simply continue on the next page without sacrificing any pages. The Sunny Journal has 24-weeks worth of daily prompts. You can finish it in 6 months or in 6 years. But you’d probably benefit way more if you kept at it.

Mood tracker

The five little hearts at the top are for you to keep track of your mood. You can either do this first thing in the morning or right before going to bed at night. It’s entirely up to you. I recommend you use pretty colors just for kicks.

The Morning Prompts

You start your day by setting your intentions. I find this practice extremely helpful. It’s all about taking the next manageable step, consolidating habits and getting closer to your goals, one day at a time.

Imagine you wouldn’t eat anything for 24 hours. How much weight do you think you can lose? Will that weight really stay off? Highly unlikely. But if you cut 500 kcal a day, every day, over a long enough period of time, you will undoubtedly shed off those extra pounds.

So as you write down ‘I give myself permission to…‘, ‘I’m brave enough to…‘ and ‘I choose to…‘ you not only extend kindness to yourself and take full responsibility for your own life. You also form new habits that will enhance your journey in unimaginable ways.

Inspiring Words of Wisdom

The daily quote is there to inspire you and help you keep going even when things get hard. The quote changes daily so there are a total of 182 quotes throughout the Sunny Journal.

The Evening Prompts

The evening prompts are for counting your blessings and celebrating your wins. Now the magic might not happen as much on the page as it does off the page, but the process of writing it down is essential.

When you keep an evening gratitude journal, you spend your day looking for the silverling in everything you do and happens to you. Maybe someone let you merge in front of them at rush hour. Or your spouse waited for you with a delish homemade dinner. It’s the little things that bring a smile to your face that make a difference.

Same goes for celebrating your wins, be they big or small. Somewhere along the way, we learned to rely a little bit too much on others’ approval. We expect them to congratulate us whenever we hit a milestone. But we rarely take a moment to say ‘Good job!‘ to ourselves. The Sunny Journal is an opportunity for you to break this toxic pattern.

Also, at the end of the day, feel free to check the little suns if you want to record which of your morning intentions you honored throughout the day.

Weekly Questions for Self-exploration

Each week, there are one or two questions for self-reflection and self-exploration. Sometimes the answers might come easily, other times you might need to take your time and think them through.

No pressure there. This is not some kind of weekend homework you need to have all figured out by Monday. You are allowed to stop in the middle of an answer and come back to finish it two weeks later.

The whole purpose of these questions is to get your ducks in a row and know yourself better.

The Habit Tracker

If you are trying to stick to some new habits right now (and we all should be striving for better, healthier habits all the time), the habit tracker will prove very helpful. Decide on up to five habits you are trying to develop right now, write them down in the first column and then draw a circle, an x or whatever tickles your fancy in the columns next to it as the week progresses.

A bit more about the Sunny Journal

This baby is a 5.5 x 8.5-inch paperback and 226 pages worth of journaling goodness. It includes 182 days (or 26 weeks) of daily journaling and 50 questions for self-exploration.

Feel free to share photos of you using the Sunny Journal on Instagram using the hashtag #thesunnyjournal – seeing your photos will make my day!)

I appreciate your support and I hope you enjoy it as much as I am!

xo, Laura

ABOUT LAURAHey there dream chaser! I’m a writer, designer and the creator of The Smart Blog Planner. I’m on a mission to inspire and empower you to create a highly profitable minimalist online business and show up for your dreams in a sustainable way.